~ a blog about sustainability at the University of St. Thomas

Refuge in a Cloud Forest?

Our course – BIOL 211: Introduction to Field Ecology – is visiting 4 sites in Costa Rica this January. Our group’s first venture into the Costa Rican forest was at the Cuericí Biological Station in Cerro de la Muerte. We left the urban center of San Jose unsure of what to expect. We could see the changing landscape and feel a chill in the air as the bus climbed higher into the mountains. After hours of driving, our driver Jorge pulled over and explained that he couldn’t take us any further. In fact, he had no idea how we were supposed to get to the station from there. The terrain was much too steep and dangerous for the bus to maneuver (after all, Cerro de la Muerte means mountain of death.) We waited for the station’s owner, Carlos Solana, to come…